The Green Deal has effectively been scrapped after the government announced that there will be no further funding to the Green Deal Finance Company.
In an announcement, Energy and Climate Change Secretary, Amber Rudd, said: “We are on the side of hardworking families and businesses, which is why we cannot continue to fund the Green Deal.
It’s now time for the building industry and consumer groups to work with us to make new policy and build a system that works. Together we can achieve this government’s ambition to make homes warmer and drive down bills for one million more homes by 2020 – and to do so at the best value for money for taxpayers.”
In response to the announcement, Nigel Rees, Glass and Glazing Federation (GGF) Group chief executive, commented: “This announcement is no surprise to the GGF. During the last government, the GGF constantly worked with DECC (Department of Energy and Climate Change) on the development of Green Deal and ECO and consistently explained why both programmes would not work for the replacement window industry; this has been proven by the extremely low numbers of glazing measures installations, 223 under Green Deal and 972 under ECO. Combined, these figures do not even make up 0.1% of the total measures installed under the schemes. The GGF now looks forward to working with the current government to ‘make new policy and build a system that works’ as outlined by Amber Rudd.
“The GGF believes it is essential to improve the energy efficiency within the existing building stock and people’s lifestyles, as well as reducing carbon emissions. Moving forward, the GGF is keen to work constructively with DECC and will be contacting them to discuss a new proposal from an industry perspective, offering our expertise, suggestions and solutions.”
Current government policies, including the Energy Company Obligation (ECO) scheme, will reportedly continue to provide support for low-income and ‘vulnerable’ households.
